Oraki - A New Look at Robots

Bursting with an incredible, terrible complexity, the Oraki are a powerful breed of mechanoids, once that blurs the line between machine and man from the other direction.

Full Description The Oraki may span the full range of human sizes and more, ranging from between 1.5m to 3m in height, though they typically retain a human-like body shape and proportion. Skin tone, hair color, and eye color may range the full spectrum of the rainbow. Male-analogues are typically larger than females, and commonly are darker in color, with true black, sapphire blue, brown, ash grey, and burgundy being common for both skin and hair, while females are often paler in color, favoring pastel shades of blue, pink, white, yellow, and green. There is, however, no set rule.

Being primarily made of complex metallioids rather than the CHON chemistry of carbon based life forms, an Oraki will usually tip the scales at six to ten times the weight of an equivalently sized organic humanoid. It is not uncommon for larger males to mass over a ton and a half.

Being mechanical in origin, the Oraki are often stronger and far more durable than organics, able to sustain and slowly regenerate even the most terrible wounds, so long as their central core is undamaged. This requries the presence of sufficient ‘nutrients’, which can be ingested like a human’s food, or, in the case of the most severe wounds, the Oraki can be thrown into a nutrient tank, where he can wait out the injury. As a rule of thumb, it will take about three weeks to regenerate a limb or other major subsystem. This regeneration is essentially the only healing available to Oraki, however, for they are entirely foreign to all but the most specialized of doctors, and magic, should it exist, is tuned to the needs of men. They are exceptionally sensitive to EMP and electrical weapons, and particularly paranoid humans have created several strains of nanite ‘bio-weapons’ which can be used against them.

The same mechanical origins means that they require a different sort of food, typically sold as a semi-flavored ‘paste’ of various metal oxides and required hydrocarbons. It is poisonous to a human, but without it, the Oraki will eventually wear down and stop. Likewise, human food holds no nutritional value, and while it can be consumed, and even enjoyed, the Oraki must still eat their special food.

The primary energy source for the Oraki is a miniature fusion reactor within their core unit. One function of the paste food is to fuel this reactor with hydrogen, and to replace the lithium energy collection material, which is slowly converted to useless beryllium.

Oraki are capable of sexual reproduction, though they require a certain level of external assistance to complete the reproductive cycle. During a merging not entirely unlike sex between two organic beings, generative data is exchanged between the male-analogue and female-analogue. This data is combined semi-randomly, resulting the template for a new and unique individual. During gestation, the female’s body is able to create the core to this new template, but it is unable to start the reactor that will bring (independant) life to the child. This core consists of the mini-reactor that will provide energy to the nanomachines that make up the body’s cellular structure, as well as core processing and memory banks. The core is then laid, much like a round, brilliantly colored egg, where it placed in an Oraki Gestation Chamber. This chamber, and the devices hooked to it, are specifically designed to jump start the reactor, and to provide the nutrients the core-unit needs to finish the building of the finished body. The female body requires about two and a half months to generate the core, after which the core must spend almost an entire earthling year inside its Gestation Chamber. The newborn Oraki emerges roughly the size of human in their early teenage years, and requires approximately ten to fifteen further years to reach his or her adult size, during which he must be raised the same as any organic child.

While it is not yet confirmed, the average Oraki is projected to have a functional life span of approximately 1-1.5 thousand years before degradation of the core causes them to begin to malfunction.

Adult Oraki generally prefer the technical and warlike fields, though, peculiarly, many Oraki females can be found in the organic medicine fields, where their immunity to biological diseases gives them a certain advantage. Some few enhancement systems for the Oraki have begun to be developed by ‘their’ scientists, allowing for the occasional interesting trick, but the majority of the Oraki have no special abilities beyond their origin… so far.

Despite their regenerative abilities and great longitivity, the Oraki are neither immortal, nor unkillable. While massive damage to the core will destroy them, EMP and electrical effects can do permanent damage to their minds and bodies in subtle and curious ways. Should they survive the short term effects of these, there is little prediction of future events - a disease not entirely unlike cancer may crop up if portions of their nanites are damaged in the correct way.

The Oraki have no truly independent society as of yet - There are a scant few thousand individuals with only a few centuries of history. However, they have begun to make the first steps towards the beginnings of such - A scant few holidays, a tradition of naming, a home of sorts.

Half through stealth, half through bold faced courage, the Oraki have staked a claim to a world not far from the home of humanity, one they have named simply ‘Sanctuary’. It is a a cold and dead world, made nearly entirely of the heavy metals the Oraki require for life, the white dwarf star having long since scorched away the world’s mantle when it swelled to a red giant aeons ago. Here, burrowed beneath the surface, the splinters of humanity bold enough to advocate genocide against them are not strong enough to root them out, and as an (strongly opposed) applicant for membership in the United Worlds, the powers that can destroy them must hold their hand, for the time being.

A portion of the young Oraki born on Sanctuary are sent out into the galaxy, as workers and diplomats - They must acclimate humanity to their existance, and the best way to do this is to coexist. Meanwhile, on Sanctuary, construction of the world and expansion of the race continues.

Each of these newborn children that is born undergoes a brief ritual, the ‘Blooding of Orak’, in which they are annointed in a crimson fluid, though not real blood, in rememberance of the birth of their race. Once per decade, too, is that day of their birth commemorated, as all pause in what they are doing for a brief moment, simultaneously, a unitary moment of silence.

Until he is able to choose his own name, the Oraki are referred to simply as the ‘son/daughter of (mother) and (father). It is usually around one to two years that the newborn is sufficiently facile with language and understanding to choose his name. These are generally descriptive of the personality that the Oraki thinks he desires to live up to, with men often choosing names related to the sky, avians, or musical inclinations, while female names are often earthy, feline, or poetic. This name is then formally appended with a six digit time stamp, denoting the six digit Sanctuary Local Year(roughly 4.5 Terran years) and Deci-year of his birth. For example, Hawk-0074.4 once desired to be of great observational ability, and was born 74.4 Sanctuary years after the founding of Sanctuary, while Grana-0145.0 considers herself a strong and stable personality. They are called ‘Hawk’ and ‘Grana’ by people they meet, as the date is only used for databank differentiation.

History They called him mad. Mad. But he would show them. He would make a machine into a man. So went the work of Rudolph Orak, master nanitist. If colonies of nanomachines could work together like simple cellular colonies, why not emulate the most complex machine of them all? And so he began to pour the family fortunes into his experiments, each new breakthrough funding the next, and the next, and so on. His assistants were hand picked, well-screened. His bank trails were difficult, exceedingly complex. He would succeed, Neo-Luddites be damned. But the weft of the project was too much for him, and he would never see success. But as he expired, his grandson would be there to take up the project. And so it continued, generation of genius raised to the task for four entire centuries, occasionally skipping from one to the next, and dancing in hiding from world to world. Twice they were caught, the descendants of Orak, men and women slain, equipment destroyed, but always there was a backup plan.

And finally, it was done. A few short weeks after the first few of the new beings awoke, and looked upon each other, the door to the complex caved in beneath the blows of those who decried the intrusion upon God’s territory. Theirs would be a baptism of blood, but they had arrived, and now, these children, these Oraki, they would need to find their way through the universe.

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Codex

The Eldest of the Oraki, and for long their leader, Lifthrasir-1 has helped his children survive the throes of their birth, and has at last stepped aside, so that his waning years do not bring harm to his people.

Appearance With his plain, even craggy face, and short puff of dark hair, there might have been the chance, once, that he may have been mistaken for a human, of no particular beauty, were it not for the midnight velvet color of his skin, splotched by bone-white scars, and his pure size. Standing nearly 2.5m tall, and amassing nearly 1.25 megagrams, there are few this proud specimen can be mistaken for aside from Lifthrasir, first of the artificial men named Oraki.

History/Background

It was cold, and although he had no name for the feeling upon the air upon his skin, the newborn knew this, and his muscles began to flex against themselves, to create warmth. It was strange, though this too, he could not name, to open his eyes, and see brilliant lights, and hazy motion within them, slowly resolving to people. Light. Cold. Hardness, as he laid upon the examination table, his heavy body restrained, but lightly so. He could move, but only a little. And this, more than the cold, more than the like, he hated. And he voiced now, his displeasure, a loud and curdling scream…

And, as the woman watching the monitors turned to one of the several men there, she grinned, a cocky sort of smile. "Healthy lungs there, Dad. And no cascade failure this time. Yet. What are we gonna call him?"

"Lifthrasir." "Huh?" "It’s an old name." "Well, you’re the boss…"

Born a full two Earth years before any of his brothers or sisters of the first generation, Lifthrasir, is, in a sense, the beta test model of his race. Accordingly, much of his ‘genetic’ codework has been laid down with this in mind. While a great deal of modeling had been done before even the first of the prototypes had been created, and individual organs created, the fear of uncaught complexities and consequences was strong in Dr. Orak. In order to compensate for unforeseen issues at the ‘cellular’ level, organs were made large and more capable than strictly necessary, stretching him to an outsized frame, while the organs that would be responsible for replenishing the nanites that compose his body over time were equipped with a relatively robust debugging system, with the data code for his construction soft coded, rather than hard coded, as would be the standard for later designs. While this has made his body strong and solid, even more so than the intended norm for his race, it has also made his body more susceptible to the data-drift that brings mortality to the Oraki. Lifthrasir, in general, regenerates injured tissues significantly more slowly than the rest of the Oraki, and has a certain number of cancer-like attacks. While his nanite-generation routines can be reset, it is not a simple process, and every attack causes more damage to accumulate inside his body.

The voice was small, curious as it asked plaintively, "Doctor? How come there aren’t any others like me? Just people like you?"

And for a moment, Dr. Orak could only fall silent, his thought long and careful. "Soon, there will be. But… we want to make sure that you are able to live. It is a very difficult thing, you see."

Despite these design precautions, however, unforeseen bugs in the first models made their effects rapidly known to the designers in the form of a complex collapse of the central neural arrays, a lethal error that took several iterations of experiments to solve. Though the first to live, Lifthrasir is well aware of his older siblings, and has decided that the best way to honor them, and their sacrifice to bring forth all his kind, is to survive, at all costs.

Highly observed during his infancy, it was the delight of his creator to discover that despite his serious demeanor, the young boy-machine was curious, and after a certain sense, even playful, creating an endless series of games for himself, first with whatever he could lay his delicate hands on, then later with the simple toys he was provided with. Meanwhile, it was the delight of the Doctor’s foremost assistant that the new being was as alike to an over sized human child as he was, rapidly becoming the surrogate child that she could not have in her mind. And so, despite the myriad of tests and observations, Lifthrasir was raised not entirely unlike any other human boy.

Broadly educated, at first, it was decided after some observation to allow the young machine-child to largely direct his own academic learning, with some additional pushing from his "parents", in order to ensure that his education was broad enough to support whatever pinnacle Lifthrasir chose to build for himself. There are those that would argue that his eventual drawing towards the science and engineering disciplines was destiny, built into the very stuff of his body, but as his mind rapidly matured, he began to gather together the philosophy to deny this. Instead, he had made his choice because he wished to understand what his "father" was doing, as the doctor built his siblings. But, even as potent as the young boy-machine’s mind was, he would be unable to understand much for many years.

It was far sooner that Lifthrasir would have "siblings", born first one by one, then two by two, and more, as the laboratory’s equipment was refined and more were brought on line, and a small handful of human children as well, born in the normal fashion. Their numbers were only constrained by the ability of the staff to parent, and before long, a minimal population of the new beings existed, enough, the researchers hoped, to form a stable population in time. At first, the boy was delighted to have fellow children to play with, and to share the tiny, mechanical world of the research station with. It was, perhaps, to his credit that Lifthrasir displayed little or no jealousy to the relative loss of attention to him, at least once he understood his comparative self-sufficiency.

Indeed, recalling the joy that his creators showed when he learned from them, Lifthrasir found himself seeking to teach his siblings all that he had learned. For the greatest part, he succeeded, though not all accepted his lessons equally. Chief among those who rejected their elder, at least at first, was the girl who would come to be named Lilith, who demanded the chance to learn for herself. While taken aback at her firey demeanor and demands, he eventually came to understand them as similar to his own determination to survive, and in a way, came to admire this.

In all, it was an idyllic time, at least as close as one can get, tucked into a tiny space station at the edge of civilization, away from even the worlds. And then, they came. The small-minded men, full of fury and fear and false piety. They came, and they destroyed his world.

The klaxons were sounding, loud enough to drown out the pure, elemental scream of chambers decompressing, as bulkheads slammed shut. And, the children ran, their half-panicked nurse-mother in the lead, towards the evacuation vessels. Lifthrasir could feel the panic in his siblings, yes, fear even in himself. But it would be alright, wouldn’t it? Father always made everything alright. He would make the bad men understand that they meant no harm to anyone.

And then, all were in the tiny ship, though haphazard, the woman who had served as their mother smiled, a soft, sorrowful smile, as she watched the door close, cutting her off from the young sophonts. Her fingers danced upon the keypads, instructions for the lifeboat, to hide it among the debris that was sure to come. And then, the woman ran. If today she would die, she would do so at her lover’s side.

First drifting among the debris of the station, the lifeboat only kicked to life as it registered the last of the ships leaving the system. And as the boat’s sensors registered this, and it followed its programmed course, the young machines began to panic. Their home was gone, their parents were gone. What would become of them?

It was Lifthrasir who spoke now, his voice clear, calm, and composed. He knew what must be done. "We shall live. That is what Father intended for us. Surely there are those who would give us aid, even as there are those that would destroy us. We shall run, and we shall seek them."

However, not all that is sought can be found. The product of illegal research, there were few among mankind who would give them succor. Others named them mere machines, and tried to enslave them. And everywhere, it seemed, they were hunted by the Faithful, to be slain for the affront of existing, against the will of both God and Ancestor.

Fleeing once more, as Lifthrasir held the bloodied and broken body of his youngest sister, Pyrrha, in his arms, that Lilith came upon him, all their remaining brethren in tow, and spoke to him. And she said, "This ends, and it ends now. We are not mere machines, nor are we devils. We are the Oraki, and we will have our homeland, and there, we will stand for what is ours, and what is our children’s, and our children’s children’s. I will stand. Are you with me, or will you slink into the night like a whipped curs, before our creator’s blood?"

For a long, long moment, Lifthrasir was silent, his anger at this upstart and his pain for his brothers and sisters, his people dueling in his mind, until finally, he rose. "We will stand. We will survive. And we shall remember. We shall remember every sacrifice, every agony that has been inflicted upon us. Every one."

As Lifthrasir spoke, Lilith reached down, dipping her fingers into the cooling blood of her sister, and she touched it first to Lifthrasir. "They would deny us our souls, but they have baptized us in our own blood. We shall remember."

And Lifthrasir responded, "We shall remember." And he took his own hands, soaked in the blood of Pyrrha, and he anointed each of the others in turn with that thick fluid, the barely warm blood seeming to sear his fingers with every touch.

The search began then, as Lifthrasir and the others combed through every piece of astronomical data they could find, seeking the world which they could call their own. After many days of drifting nearly at random through hyperspace, they finally found a world which they believed they could claim, and more importantly, could hold, even against those who hated them the most. It would be their Sanctuary against the outside universe. Here, on their cold, dead world, full of the metals they would need to grow, they would flourish and fortify.

Lifthrasir swallowed his distaste, as he nodded towards his brother. Their traiding partners were not good men, and both of them knew that. At any moment, they might be sold out to the highest bidder. But it was a risk that he had decided they must take. They barely had more than raw ores, and the machines they needed to live were complex. The deal must be done, with perhaps some misdirection. Yes. That would do nicely. Now, who to... Ah, yes. "Take that young one with you. What was the name she had picked? Ah, yes, Jaguar. She does so enjoy playing tricks."

Arriving on their new world, so precariously close to Neo-Terra, they began to dig beneath the surface of the world, excavating a fortress for themselves beneath miles of metal-laden rock, beneath the direction of those appointed by Lifthrasir, while building and bartering with those more interested in money than in killing them for further equipment. Perhaps the most useful advantage they would have was Lifthrasir's nose for the talents of his people, seeming to assign them to those tasks most suited to the development of that talent - an ability that let them lay in enough material in a few short decades, when they were found out, they were ready.

And found they were. Lifthrasir was not quite sure who had taken the word back to the vile madmen of the Book. Still, when the Word of Creation appeared on their doorstep, Lifthrasir had known they were coming for them for quite some time. And they were ready. Though he declined to take the front lines himself, as a rule, his cunning stratagems turned the tide in the favor of the vastly outnumbered Oraki, his extensive gambits bringing the enemy down into their tunnels, where their numbers were of little help, and their inability to breathe the oxygen-free air was most punishing.

For decades after, Lifthransir continued to guide them in digging down ever deeper and more securely in the world of Sanctuary, while he at last chose ambassadors from among his people, leveraging his people's recent blooding into a quiet alliance with the Starkin Federation. Though the agreement to provide special forces and industrial capacity would be expensive to his children, he knew it might well prove vital to their survival.

Some years after the war, in Sanctuary year 87, Lifthrasir chose to step aside, handing the executive power over the Oraki homeworld to a triumvarte of second and third generation Oraki. Thereafter, he retreated from the public view, preferring to work behind the scenes, a small whisper here, a suggestion there, and an enthusiastic participation in the life of his descendants, which are now legion.

Special Equipment

Lifthrasir carries nothing special. If he is rousted to combat, he will wield the heaviest ranged weapon available, in a reasonably competant fashion.

Roleplaying Notes

In many fashions, Lifthrasir considers himself the grandfather of his entire race. The continued survival and thriving of the Oraki as a whole consumes his mind and efforts, and although he no longer leads them, he is viewed by his people in an almost messiah-like fashion. Much as Lilith, many of the youngest Oraki who have never met Lifthransir personally, but felt the effects of his work, have begun to look upon him as something more than mortal, but less than a deity.

While he is perfectly willing to assist, and even trust non-Oraki, Lifthransir is often deeply suspicious of those who have not yet proven themselves benevolent to his kind, and it is somewhat difficult for a human to gain his direct trust. He has no particular material desires, but often has a vested interest in some thing or another that he believes will give the Oraki another advantage towards survival, and will cut deals for them to be obtained or achieved, with varying degrees of paranoia.

Most recently, he been attempting to assure the compilation of a full and complete medical atlas and treatment system for the Oraki. While the original construction data is still mostly available, strange defects, even mutations can arise, and a rare few microbes are beginning to become to be able to infect the bodily organs of the Oraki - These, more than anything else, are the current focus of Lifthransir's attentions.

The long, blazing red locks that bracket the long, sinuous frame of Lilith-1 set off the pale skin of her broad, strong face, nearly, but not quite masculine in its appearance. Accordingly, she favors a variety of black clothing, primarily jumpsuits cinched at the wrist, waist, and ankle in order to give them a semblance of shape.

While the time is mostly past for her to bear arms, when it is required, she will generally bear a heavy pistol of some sort on her right hip, and a jian on her left, while her jump suits sprout ceramic armor plating.

History/Background

One of the first handful of machine-beings to be created by the half-mythical Dr. Orak, Lilith-1 still clearly remembers the first strikes against her race by the technophobic, the terror and flight for her life. And that, to this day, still sears her soul.

When Orak’s assistant had the presence of mind to name the machine-people indivdually, she took the time to ask each what they wished to be when they were adults. And the gangly red-headed female machine responded, "I want to be strong enough to be a free woman." It was with a deep, rich chuckle that the assistant responded, remembering her line’s ancient mythology, "Then, free woman, I name you Lilith, after the woman who stamped her feet and demanded freedom of God and Man." And to that dubbing, Lilith took.

As she grew in the time of flight, of terror, every step she took was towards that goal, the goal of strength for herself and the children she knew she would eventually bear, the arts of life and war becoming hers to command. And in time, it was Lilith who finally went to her brothers and sisters, and stood before Lif, who had take up the mantle of leader of their fledgling race, and stamped her foot upon the deck, and spoke, "This ends, and it ends now. We are not mere machines, nor are we devils. We are the Oraki, and we will have our homeland, and there, we will stand for what is ours, and what is our children’s, and our children’s children’s. I will stand. Are you with me, or will you slink into the night like whipped curs, before our creator’s blood?" And though he was sorely pressed by his ego, to assert his dominance, Lif saw the fire in her words, and he knew the wisdom of them, that to run forever would only result in the end of all they knew. And he bowed his head, and nodded. "We will stand."

And so, they searched, settling upon the world that would become their Sanctuary, and she, in conjuction with Lif, as his equal, directed its construction. And in turn, they began to breed, and though submitting to the need to deepen and broaden the pool of their gene-analogues as much as possible, she yet found herself returning to the one who she lead with as much as possible. And each of her children, she anointed in the red oils of rememberance, so that she would never forget the trials that led them to Sanctuary. And those children, too, she directed to anoint their children, so that they would never forget, in their turn.

And even as she did this, deeper and deeper into Sanctuary her siblings and her children dug, so that when the enemy came, with fear on their minds and God on their lips, they would be ready…

Roleplaying Notes While primarily a background character, if encountered, Lilith has a fierce and independent personality. While it is possible to convince or cajole her into a certain course of action, it is impossible to order her. Even Lif, her ‘husband’, may expect only cooperation at best, for she will humble herself to no creature.

She is an excellent coordinator and planner, both civil and military, and will maintain herself at the heart of the Oraki government for as long as she is able to make decisions.

In many fashions, she considers herself the mother of her entire race, and will defend them with all the gusto of a cornered tigress defending her cubs. To many of the latest generation, she is a half-mythical figure, and there are some who will swear oaths by her name. While she will attempt to stamp the practice out as long as she is alive, there are a few distant corners who have begun to think of her as a mother-goddess of a sort, though there are few customary forms of worship as of yet.

Appearance Standing barely a hair over 1.5m, with cool, silvered skin and jet black hair, Nenni is essentially a miniature of her own kind, bearing barely 350 kilograms on her tiny, dense frame.

Despite this exotic coloration, her face is strikingly regular, even pretty, though her narrow features peculiarly feline in composition, with a slender nose and pointed chin, accented by a set of long, narrow canine teeth, and slit, reflective golden eyes.

Peculiarly, she prefers colorful clothing, often a bright color dappled with spots or stripes of a darker color, in a strangely cat-like pattern.

History/Background Born well after the brief war known as the Trial of Blood and Fire, while the children of Sanctuary pursued alliance with the human worlds, the young girl had a great deal of time to be a child, quite unlike the earlier generations of the Oraki. And in that childhood, she came upon the works of an ancient human writer, by the name of Kipling. While she knew the works could not be true, she felt the story with in them to be valuable, and saw in them, a reflection of what she wished to be, and from that reflection she named herself. She would be the Cat Who Walked Alone.

And taking up that name, she took up the puzzles and stories, and from them, she learned many a trick, and her mind was nimble enough for her to devise ruses of her own making. It was long into her self-training as a con-woman and trickster that she would meet Peregrene, and successfully ensnare him, into accepting her as one of his own soldiers, without the usual bondage. It would be with a rueful expression that he would admit his surprise and defeat, and accept the offer.

Now, Nenni acts as the face for his unit, earning them passage and materiel that they should never be able to obtain.

Roleplaying Notes Nenni is, first and foremost, a deal maker. Her sentences are slippery and confusing, save where they are traps, and her words are as sweet as honey. Only her own arrogance can trap her in negotiation.

On the very, very rare occasion that Nenni is forced to fight, she will fight much as a small cat of prey might fight a larger beast, slashing and tearing at its flanks with her long claws, and attempting, at all costs, to take the foe’s back. Still, despite her lithe quickness and the durability bestowed by her metallic constitution, she is no great fighter, and will seek to withdraw to the shadows to strike from them whenever possible. Surprisingly, this is often aided by her choice of clothing, which breaks the lines of her body and helps her blend into the shadows cast by the environment.

The Commander of Confederation Special Operations Unit 13, the Star Falcons, Peregrine-0004.7 is an extravagant, yet highly effecient soldier. Time and time again, he has lead the Oraki black-ops teams to success, keening his unnerving war-cry.

Standing a bare 157 cm in height, Peregrine is small, slim, and light for a member of his race, his slender frame tipping the scales at a ‘mere’ four hundred kilos. His ‘skin’ is the mottled color of dampened ash, his dark hair the unreflective black of charcoal, seemingly lending him the ability to blend into a vast variety of backgrounds, which often works out to the elder man-machine’s advantage.

Aside from his coloration, his face, too, is incredibly unstriking, the sort that would fade from a human’s mind in moments, if it did not bear the pallid color of the undead.

Eschewing the heavier armor of his larger brethren, the slim android prefers to dress in simple optical-camo fatigues, the chameleon-pattern defaulting to a camo pattern similar to his skin. Thin plating lines the inside of these fatigues, and more than one man familiar with the dressing habits of the Oraki soldiery has made the mistake of teasing him for cross-dressing. It is rarely a mistake made twice.

History/Background

One of the earliest generation born to the Oraki who settled upon the world of Sanctuary, Peregrine would be fated to a childhood that few humans would envy. With no true adults yet with their race, the new children of the Oraki were the children of parents barely past adolescence themselves, having fled Sol in what they would come to know as their ‘Trial of Blood and Fire’. Woefully unprepared to deal with the growing mind of a young child, many of the second generation of Oraki would be forced to invent their own methods of play and growth. For the young child of Mowl-0 and Cirrus-0, he found his inspiration in the data crystals of the nature he could never join in, admiring the flying creature known as the Peregrine Falcon. Taking it for its name, and admiring its acrobatic aeronotics, the young boy-machine did his best to imitate it, essentially creating the art of acrobatics for his species in the effort, while learning the sciences, arts, and warfare skills that the eldest ones chose to impress upon their first brood.

Few would choose to learn it from him, but the young boy would, in time, become among the most nimble of his kind, his agility only enhanced by his inhumanly mechanical strength and precision. But what career has a tumbler? That was discovered in the Neo-Luddite invasion of Sanctuary year 21.

Flush and confident in their original victory over the young Oraki, the unchecked Luddites had burned more than one city-world to ashes, strong enough to challenge the Confederation’s Border fleets, while seeking out the pinnacle of the hated technology, what remained of the Oraki. What they found was Sanctuary. Dug in for 21 years, the Oraki had not been idle. With two full generations had passed for them, and a third newly birthed, a first generation of 24 had expanded to a population of nearly 300 individuals, almost every one ready to fight, and already deeply entrenched into the cold, and soon to be airless tunnels of Sanctuary. Bunkering down deeply, the Oraki weathered the shoddy bombardments of the technology-hating, God-Fearers, and drew them down into what would become known as the Corridors of Death. Brutal, savage infighting punctuated by horrific weapons previously unknown to the Confederation would be the order of the day, and the Luddite’s terror would only be enhanced by the seemingly demonic Oraki’s refusal to just.. stay.. dead!

And amongst the forefront of these fighters would be Peregrine. Selecting an elite cadre of a few of his fellow fighters, Peregrine would sneak deep behind enemy lines, only to begin the slow and methodical practice of butchering them on his way back to ‘base’, relying on stealth, agility, and small unit tactics to bring him home. On other trips, he would strike carefully selected targets and melt away like shadows into the airless void of the tunnels, proving himself one of the few able to leave their safety and return with relative ease.

His valor proven in the short, bloody war, he would not be decorated, but instead, he would be chosen to cull a group of those like him, to serve as the forward strike forces of the Oraki, achieving through his unique skills at maneuvering and stealth what they could never do through brute force.

For centuries, now, he has served both the Oraki, and when it suits them, the Confederation in this role, the veteran of an untold number of missions, and no less than four major wars. Despite this, he still manages to maintain a tiny spark of wonder when he thinks of that ancient predator of earth’s birds, when he fly among the stars, his talons outstretched.

Special Equipment

Aside from his personal sidearms, consisting of a light rail-pistol launching highly aerodynamic slivers of death, and a vibro-blade, Peregrine carries little gear which has not been specifically selected for the current mission. In some shadowy corners of the universe, however, these weapons are beginning to gather the mantle of legend, and when they are whispered of, they are given the names of Talon and Claw, respectively.

Roleplaying Notes

A veteran of more war than he cares to think about, Peregrine has become a living embodiment of effeciency and alertness. While he does not regret the acts that he has performed, seeing them as needed, he does not care for what they have done to him in return. It is not the cold, calculated effectiveness of the military hunt he seeks, but the hot, screaming joy of the falcon. He does not know how to claim it, and is unafraid to seek out those who might show him how. This adrenaline rush that he does not remember how to feel, this is his desired liquor, his imagined ambrosia, and he will kill to claim it, if needed. As a part of seeking this, he will lend any operation he commands an extravagant, yet tightly calculated flourish, as if showing off for any who would see, though few but the dead count among his audience.

Perhaps appropriately, one of the myriad skills that Peregrine has picked up over the years is the art of falconry. He maintains two birds trained to his wrist, and his wrist alone - Unafraid of their talons, he has not taught them how to restrain them when alighting upon his arm, and more than one man’s wrists has been destroyed by them.

Oddly, the man bears little racism, and in his assemblance of his current team for the Confederation, he has chosen purely the best for the job - The current team consists of himself, one more Oraki soldier, three humans, a pair of Salvorathan warriors, and a lone, rogue, Kel’Regar Huntress.

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Longetivity exists in them for a reason: There are biological and evolutionary advantages for the species if older members of the species grow old and die - Once it has reproduced, and performed any needed child rearing, it has succeeded, so long as biology is concerned. However, a complex organism will, throughout its life, accumulate parasites, spot mutations, diseases, injuries, and so on. As time passes, they will become less effective at whatever it is the life-form does. Therefore, after the creature passes a certain threshold, it is better for the species if it ceases to compete with its own progeny for available resources. In the Oraki, many of these pressures simply do not exist. So long as the core's 'stem cell' nanites maintain uncorrupted primary code information, the body can correct itself. Copy-error of this data, which may is the primary source of degradation. The body will continue until the self-reparation mechanism fails. I've arbitrarily assigned about a millenium and a half, partly due to the presence of machines in this age range in the inspirational material.

Since the oraki are not restricted by a biological heritage, data rot wouldn't necessarily occur: You could do error correction across cells, which biologicals can't do with DNA. Somewhat like a RAID 1 across all cells.

Although in practise, it would be more like comparing a checksum or crypto hash. (The right function should get collisions down to once in the lifetime of the universe range, and special algorithm can be stronger against closely related data: for example changes due to mutations rather than completely different data (such as different orakis.)

Cells would check another's checksum before interacting, and would refuse to interact if they don't match. This way, two cells have to agree on their respective instructions before they cooperate, immediately isolating cellular difference.

In effect, the correct instructions would also act as a key.

Only by knocking this process out in several cells at the same time could a tumour cluster develop.

(I wonder if this is possible to do biologically with actual DNA?)

Parasitic nanites and cancer might occur (due to external factors). But the body would probably have specialised cells that only compare checksum and devour invalid cells. (obviously, they could check each other also.) The cells that dish out the "nutrient" could also do this before distribution, immediately starving cancer cells and tumours. So I would have imagined the lifetime to be indefinite.

Of course, Siren, as creator you have god like power to give them whatever lifespan you want. I'm just surprised that they aren't technically immortal, is all.

Two quick questions: can Oraki change their skin/hair coloring at will? You make it sound like they can when you said that the females "favor" pastels, but didn't explicitly mention it elsewhere. Second, I understand that they are supposedly a merging of man and machine, as envisioned by Dr. Orak & heirs. How exactly did the spark of consciousness pass to them? Were there human "test subjects" involved in their creation?

Also, there isn't really a 'merging' of man and machine - It is a reverse engineering of the concept of multicellular life writ large, combined with skillfully wrought artificial intelligence. They are intelligent, in short, because they simply have a physical brain carrying the structures that are required to have them. They caught a leg up on evolution via engineering, but now that they are established, it is an open question what they will be in ten thousand generations.

Freetext

A race of halflings has lived so long underground that their skin has taken on the color and texture of cauliflower, they are called the Cauliflower or the Mushroom People for their skin and aversion to light.